You are born for Greatness
If you have ever bought an Apple phone or a Mac you can see in the package it says “Designed by Apple in California and Assembled in China”.
If God were to put a label on GREAT people in the Bible like Nehemiah, Moses, Peter etc, it would be this,
“Designed by God. Assembled through Brokenness.”
Every GREAT product has to go through a period of brokenness and fiery furnace and withstand the heat and fire.
Peter was broken and sifted like wheat. The scripture says, he wept bitterly after he disowned Jesus.
Moses was broken before he became a great leader. He had to leave the luxuries of Egypt and live as a shepherd for several years. He was demoted to a shepherd from a prince. He had to face rejection and hatred from his own people. He faced severe opposition from his own people for whom he sacrificed everything.
David was on the run for his life to save himself from a mad king called Saul before he became a great king.
Apostle Paul had to suffer many kinds of trials from his own people and the Romans.
Jesus had to go through Gethsemane and the Cross before the resurrection. Jesus had to go through that pain- ful moment when God hid His eyes from Jesus when our sins were laid on him on that Cross and he cried ‘My God My God why have you forsaken me.’
There is NO GREATNESS without BROKENNESS.
The path to GREATNESS is not a cakewalk.
You will be broken! Let me rephrase it. You will be brutally broken! Greatness involves a lot of pain…lots of pain…lots and lots of pain…and sacrifices. Paul said once in the scripture “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”1
Do you know how Diamonds are formed in the Earth? Before it became a diamond it was an ugly black sub- stance called carbon. But inside of it GREATNESS is hid- den somewhere. The transformation of carbon to diamond is a process that takes hundreds and thousands of years to complete. This takes place 90 to 100 miles below the Earth’s surface when carbon, probably pure graphite, is exposed to temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius and pressure that is 50 times greater than the pressure that exists on the surface of the Earth.
Likewise GREATNESS is hidden inside each and every one of you and you have to go through intense heat and pressure to reveal that diamond in you.
Michelangelo, one of the greatest sculptors, said “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”2 Can you withstand the pressure and heat to become GREAT? People quit sometimes and will compromise with the world like Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus for the love of money or like King Saul who pursued David all his life- time in order to kill him because of insecurity and love of power and fame. These people couldn’t withstand the pres- sure and heat. Can you withstand the pressure and heat?
You might be going through a period of brokenness in your marriage, in your family, in your career, in your health. But you are going through this because God is say- ing to you it’s time for you to have a GREAT MARRIAGE, GREAT CAREER and GREAT HEALTH. The ruins you see will not destroy you but will take you to another level. Just persevere and don’t quit.
